Tharkil

            Bishop Tharan Kiloth drank that night. He enjoyed the occasional glass of summerwine or a smoky sip of whiskey on occasion but sitting in his laboratory in the aftermath of the funeral was more than he could bear. Conjuring alcohol was as simple as conjuring water. He conjured a great deal.

            With a sickening slurp he disconnected the metal half of his face and let it rest on the desk in front of him. Where once he had an eye there was now a sunken recess where the jaw bone had buckled and the socket had become scarred over after years of recurring infection. The body does not accept machinery as replacement easily. Now he barely noticed the flaring pain. The scotch helped.

For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.

For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. 
 

Tharan Kiloth was used to the heat. After nearly two decades of dedication to the arts of fire magic and engineering he had grown well accustomed to the fires of both arcane circles and the forges of Feuergrad. All the same he found the desert sun unbearable.

A small, wall-less pavilion had been erected atop the desert dune. It seemed unnecessary beneath the ever present shadow cast by the Valorous Templar but Techpriest Kiloth preferred the aesthetics of his camp as well as the function. He sat on an easily collapsible chair of wood, hinges, and thick canvas with a small table at the perfect height to set a drink upon. He reached with his mechanical hand and delicately grasped a silver goblet slick with condensation. A cool sip of water made the heat all the more bearable.

The Valiant Phalanx had changed over the months since the world had broken. Isenheim had taken on a life of its own and no longer required its bishop’s constant attentions. Streets were bustling with life and once more Lordaeron echoed with the laughter of children. Tall walls, taller than Genn Greymane could ever have imagined, shot from the mountains in a natural pattern to surround the populace. No plague would dare to pierce the heart of such a grand visage.

Tharan Kiloth considered this from the iron spire he stood atop. It rose from the Valiant Phalanx’s hull like so many others that dared to scratch the wisps of white cloud that once more wished to hang over newly breathing Lordaeron. Trees and plants peaked their heads through the plague soaked earth and through the new breaths it drew the clouds were slowly drawn from the sea. Tharan drew a slow breath himself and savored the succulent taste.

Cannon fire echoed all around Bishop Tharan Kiloth. He paused from his sermon to focus on the sound. Those assembled before him did the same, raising their heads from their prayers but keeping their eyes closed in reverence. Tharan enjoyed the sound. It reminded him of Feuergrad where the blacksmiths outside his laboratory constantly hammered away, creating the armament that fueled the crusade. Each ring of shot rang out like the bells of a Loraderon chapel. It was the music that fueled his speech.

"Vanity of vanities," Tharan Kiloth began. He was pacing along the recently constructed town square while fire licked at leather bound tomes and fine silk gowns. Men, women, and children crowded around the great pyre; some with looks of anguish but most with looks of devotion. A ring of armored Crusaders stood at the ready all the same and Reginald Carver had his fingers clamped particularly tightly around his clipboard. "Vanity of vanities and all things are vanity. The Light punished us once for our vanity, remember? A swarm of demons, green skinned with a thirst for blood, tore us from our homes and burned our farmland. They drove men apart and sowed seeds of distrust where once there had been love. We rose above that challenge.

((This is the scene that proceeds Tharkil's banishment from Dalaran that was hinted at in A Memory of Blood))           

“The Senate welcomes Tharan Kiloth to its halls,” an elderly mage murmured to the assembled masses. His voice was soft like a whisper but resonated through the vaulted arches of the domed senate chamber. After giving his beard a gentle caress he leaned back into his velvet cushioned armchair to observe the proceedings.

            “Please tell me your efforts yielded some results!” Lord Techpriest Tharan Kiloth barked to the armored man standing in the entrance arch to the subterranean private laboratory constantly filled with blue sparks and whirring gears. “Everything I have done here is contingent upon your acquiring those relics.”

Isenheim’s three walls towered up and around the large central courtyard in which trained a contingent of new recruits under the tutelage of Sir Jeremiah Landrick. He shouted simple battle orders and the recruits followed suit, executing a specific maneuver with their shields or moving in unison toward a single direction. Unit cohesion was terribly important to Jeremiah’s manner of training.

            The plaguelands of Lordaeron, all that remain of that once mighty empire, were by no means any safer after several years of armed conflict and the efforts of would be heroes to cleanse the wasteland of undeath. Plagueshrooms still dotted the landscape and the undisturbed bones of the long dead slept without peace beneath the crushing boots of patrolling Scourge. Ziggurats dotted the landscape outside Stratholme and the great city of the dead itself still reeked of burnt flesh, filth, and plague rodents. Tharan’s eye took all that in the moment he leaned out on the deck of the Valiant Phalanx. Despite its flaws something about that sight screamed “home” to the techpriest.

             The Valiant Phalanx rocked violently as a sphere of superheated iron exploded off the rear metal plates of the starboard bow. Two dirigibles were steadily making their way along the extensive length of Phalanx’s hull, one on either side and moving in opposite directions. Long sheets of gold and crimson silk billowed behind them in a display of overconfidence and pride. The three vessels exchanged fire over an otherwise calm sea disturbed only by discarded shells, unexploded shot, and bits of cracked wood blown of the smaller dirigibles. None of the Phalanx’s iron shell had been more than dented.

             The crisp slap of leather on polished metal sounded like the voice of the Light itself. Lord Techpriest Tharan Kiloth let loose a steady hiss of relief as he brought his other foot onto the deck of the metal vessel. It felt good to have an airship beneath his feet. Mountain life had become too … monotonous.

The fourth door on the east side of the corridor after passing the small, discrete chapel off to the side of the military barracks was crafted from thick red oak, adorned with a white heater shield bearing the Scarlet Flame, and opened with absolute silence and precision as Lord Techpriest Tharan Kiloth twisted the brass handle and passed into the room beyond. A face glanced up from a leather bound book resting atop a desk of similar wood. The accommodations were sparse and far from the extravagance Tharan enjoyed. A simple broadsword was hung upon the northern wall and a stand in the corner held up unpainted armor that gleamed from fresh oiling. Beside the desk there lay a thick leather saddle. The face behind the desk scowled.

((Previously, in Techpriest Kiloth's blog)) 

"Yes, I suppose the Templar will have to rise again some day," Tharan sighed. The sudden arrival of another member of his crew had driven all dreariness from the techpriest's head. Worrying about something as simple as ship repair was a blessing. "And yes, I survived."

 “What, by the Light’s irreverent shadow, do you mean data is corrupt?!” Tharan roared and slammed the sharp points of his mechadendrite’s fingers into the rocky wall. “The system of memory storage is based entirely on Titan design?! How could it fail?!” He roared again and sent an arch of fire soaring toward his sword. The blood along the blade’s edge turned to steam in an instant.

Tharan woke again with sparks arching from his right shoulder. His arm, replaced after his run-in with a trigger-happy inquisitor and his means for confession, was horribly malfunctioning. What oil had drained from it was now pooled beneath the techpriest. It stained the snow. It stained the blood-red of his robes. It stained the white skull of the Death Watch.

The chill of ice was what first sent a shiver through the huddled, ragged form lying face down in the gray snow and ash. Wisps of condensing breath wound their way up from the man’s opened mouth. His breathing was ragged and a cough broke through every so often when ash was sucked into his lungs. Darkness swarmed all around him and cave walls seemed to ever so slowly collapse his world.